Transform Your Body, Part II: Action Steps

This post is Part II in the Transform Your Body series.

Part I of this series discussed the three truths you must accept to begin your personal transformation and the two areas which require change to accomplish this transformation:

1. Eating habits
2. Exercise habits

70-80% of how you look and feel is based on what you eat. When eating habits revolve around processed foods that have little nutritional value, you cannot look or feel your best.

Let’s continue now, with the three action steps for transforming your body.

Three Steps for Transforming Your Body

For every successful and lasting transformation the steps are the same:

1. Establish healthy eating habits
2. Change or begin a cardiovascular program
3. Change or begin a resistance training program

Step 1 – The Foundation for Change – Good Eating Habits

“Establish healthy eating habits” is the first step for several reasons:

• If you don’t eat right, much—if not most—of your effort invested in cardiovascular work and resistance training will be wasted. Healthy eating habits are the foundation for your transformation and will make or break your results.
• Your body needs quality food to fuel the physical demands of cardiovascular work and resistance training. Changing your exercise program before changing your eating habits is like putting the cart before the horse and wondering why you aren’t getting there.
• Changing eating habits is a difficult change for many people. Focusing on this step allows you to take the most important step in your transformation first without the added pressure of making other changes.

Steps 2 and 3 – The Exercise Components

Cardiovascular work (cardio) involves working major muscle groups to elevate your heart rate. There are many health benefits of cardio work; in short cardio burns fat stores and increases the ability of your heart and lungs to function efficiently.

Resistance training builds muscle tissue. Muscle tissue gives your body strength and shape. This type of tissue burns up calories to simply exist, allowing your body to burn more calories and decrease fat stores.

Putting the Steps for Transformation into Action

Think of these three steps as building blocks: Good eating habits are the foundation for change, a cardio program builds on that foundation, and resistance training is added to the structure.

Your current health, weight, age, experience, and eating habits determine your starting point and how long you should focus on each step before adding the additional effort required for the next step. (And please, before undertaking a new exercise program, consult with your doctor.)

For example, if you are overweight and currently living a sedentary lifestyle, focus your efforts solely on changing your eating habits for two to four weeks. Next, add a light cardiovascular program, such as walking on a treadmill. After one to three months of making progress and seeing results through good eating habits and a cardio program, add resistance training to begin building muscle and accelerate the fat burning process.

For those that are currently active, focus your efforts on changing your eating habits for two weeks. Next, change the intensity or duration of your current cardiovascular work to burn more calories and, at the same time, begin (or modify) a resistance training program.

All three steps require effort in order to change your health and appearance. Once you have begun putting effort into all three areas, you need only to keep going and be consistent in your efforts to achieve your goals.

A Solid Foundation

The exercise components and how to best achieve results as an individual can vary greatly. There is a ton of free information and advice out there on exercise programs. (Please see my post: Make This Your Year to Get in Shape on how to get started with an exercise program.) I highly recommend the use of a personal trainer to help you with the exercise component for the best results for your individual needs and goals.

Part III of this series focuses on changing your eating habits as it is the foundation for transformation and is the most difficult change to make.

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Examples of how to put these steps into action

Example #1
Adam is has a sedentary lifestyle, has many risk factors for heart disease including high cholesterol and obesity. He frequently skips breakfast and eats fast food or takeout both for lunch and dinner.

To begin his transformation, Adam starts with changing his eating habits. He focuses his efforts on this change for two to three weeks and begins to see results. He has dropped seven pounds in three weeks and has more energy. He visits his doctor to show off his weight loss and get the green light before beginning a light cardio program of walking. His doctor applauds his new enthusiasm and tells him to go for it.

After two months, Adam increases his cardio intensity and begins some resistance training with the help of a personal trainer. All the while, Adam focuses on improving his eating habits and making them part of his new lifestyle. After six months Adam’s doctor is floored with his weight loss, cholesterol levels, and overall health.

Example #2
Julie has a desk job but is fairly active. She uses an elliptical machine three or four times a week for about an hour each time. She experiences a drop in her energy level in the afternoons and evenings. She wants to trim up and to get rid of some of the extra fat camping out on her hips and thighs.

Her regular diet includes low-calorie and low-fat diet frozen dinners and snacks on 100-calorie packs. She rarely eats fast food and often skips meals to cut down her calorie consumption. She leads a busy life and sometimes eats whatever she can find in her cabinets due to hunger and emotional eating. As she is often hungry and eats low-calorie and low-fat foods, she doesn’t understand why she can’t shake those 15 to 20 pounds she’d like to see gone.

Julie focuses on changing her eating habits for two weeks. After two weeks of eating non-processed foods she intensifies her cardio program to include high-intensity interval training. After two more weeks, she has seen a real shift in her energy levels and has lost five pounds. She starts to include a cheat meal in her diet once a week and starts weight training three times a week. After three months, she has lost a total of ten pounds has dropped from a size 8 to a size 4.

Although her weight loss has slowed after the first three months, she realizes her ideal weight with muscle tone is heavier than she originally targeted. Julie keeps at it and finds that she likes her new fit look.

Part III of this series focuses on changing your eating habits.

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